Polchinski's Paradox
by 263Adder
Summary: Five and Vanya jump to 2019 and find a family who have just buried their father and are more than a little surprised to see their long-lost brother and sister. Science for Geniuses, Love for Dummies Part 3.


Vanya wasn't sure what was different about this jump.

They'd teleported twice. The first time, Five barely paused when he noticed she was along for the ride – grabbing her hand to clasp tightly after he pried it from his jacket. The second landing they had barely stopped long enough for Vanya to observe the snow swirling up the streets. But the third jump brought Five to an abrupt stop.

The street didn't look too different from the one they'd just departed. There were some new shops. More litter on the curb. But she couldn't imagine any of that was enough to make Five stop in his tracks. Perhaps this was where he wanted to go, she considered? Wherever, or rather whenever, _this_ was.

"Five?" Vanya asked nervously. She knew she wasn't meant to come along. He'd very purposefully run off without her, but, as Five hadn't stopped after the first jump to force her back, she had hoped that he was okay with her accompaniment. When he'd gripped her hand to pull her into the next jump she had been thrilled; finally, he was living up to the promise for them to run away. Yet, now it had happened, it seemed something was wrong.

Slowly he turned to look at her, eyes disbelieving. "I can't jump."

"What?"

He dropped her hand and lifted his fists to examine the blue energy rippling over them. Pushing them against, what to Vanya was seemingly, thin air, she clutched the back of his jacket again for fear of being left behind. When he tried to tear through space however, as she had seen him do so many times, his hands seemed to be repelled.

"Odd." Five muttered.

Glancing around, it surprised Vanya that no one passing them by on the busy sidewalk was stopping to stare. Even if no one knew who _she_ was, the others always attracted attention wherever they went. And Five, one of the most famous people in the world, was still in his iconic uniform; it wasn't like he was in the clothes he wore to Griddy's or when he snuck her out of the Academy. Everyone should be staring at them.

"Where – _when_ are we?"

That got Five to lift his eyes from his hands. With a furtive look at their surroundings, he settled his sights on a newspaper vending machine and fumbled in his pocket for a coin to open it.

"It's the 25th of March." He said.

"We've been gone for _four months_?" Vanya panicked. Her eyes shot up the street, towards the manor, where she was now sure Father would appear at any second to drag them back to the Academy.

"Not quite." Five replied quietly, passing over the paper.

She caught the way his mouth quirked but focused on finding the date.

"2019!" She said incredulously, her mind racing to catch up with the revelation. "Five...you jumped _sixteen years_ into the future. You've time travelled. You did it."

His grin escaped then, and there was not an inch of his face spared from the proud expression that roamed there.

"_We_ time travelled." He corrected. "Time travel and side-jumping all in one day. Dad will have a fucking heart attack."

The balloon of hope that had started to fill her heart immediately deflated. "Dad?"

Five snatched her hand back up. "Come on. I can't wait to see his face!"

Powerless not to follow him, even if the thought of returning to the Academy so soon after finding freedom from it made her blanch, Vanya trailed in Five's wake as he sprinted for home.

Five went through the gate, unlike Vanya not wondering why it was left open and looking so rusty, and slammed the front door open. Evidentially he also didn't stop to consider why it was unlocked. They always had to leave it locked. If not for criminals, for zealous Umbrella Academy fans.

"Hello." Five called out triumphantly to the empty house.

Vanya tugged on his hand but he ignored her.

"Where is everyone?" He asked after a minute, repeating his call to the manor.

"Five," Vanya said lowly, her heart beating too fast. "This doesn't feel right."

"Dad must be in his study." Five said, pulling her in that direction.

They passed the library on the way and somehow Vanya yanked on his arm hard enough to make Five stop.

"What?" He huffed impatiently.

"Look." She pointed. He followed her finger and clapped sight of his portrait.

"Oh fuck, that's weird." Five said, walking towards it.

Suffice to say, after looking around the walls with a brief flicker of hope, there was no matching portrait of Vanya anywhere to be seen.

"Five. We've been gone for sixteen years – how do we know anyone is still here?"

"The door was unlocked and the fire's lit." He pointed out, still studying his portrait.

"Anyone we _know_." She clarified. "Someone else might live here?"

"With a portrait of me on the wall?"

"An eccentric Umbrella Academy fan," Vanya suggested optimistically. In reality, she knew Father likely still lived there – but she felt that, until she saw him, she could continue to live in the delusion that they were finally free of him for a little longer.

"He's here." Five argued. "And we _will_ find him."

He plucked up her hand but was surprised when Vanya dug in her heels and refused to follow.

"_Five_. What do you think is going to happen? You just said you can't jump. We're going to end up exactly where we were ten minutes ago – back under his thumb – just sixteen years later. He's not going to proud of you, he'll be angry. He won't let us out of his sight again! We'll never escape."

"Vanya," he assured, "I won't let him hurt you if that's what you're worried about. I always protect you from his punishments, don't I?"

"I just don't like this." She insisted. "Something feels wrong. Can't you feel it too?"

Five glanced around but Vanya knew he couldn't sense the oppressive atmosphere that seemed to envelop the house. The manor had always been a harsh environment, but now it felt...it almost seemed devoid of hope. Like the flicker the children had kept alive before she and Five had jumped through time had been snuffed out in the years since their disappearance. It put Vanya on edge, and she wished Five could notice it too so she wouldn't be alone in her paranoia.

"It's just from not knowing. You'll feel better when we find everyone and see what's been going on."

Still, he seemed more conscious of her mood as he urged her forward again, wrapping an arm around her waist in a half hug as they resumed their journey towards Reginald's office. As she clung onto him with both arms, their pace was slower but a bit of Five's enthusiasm had died with her warning and he seemed content to reduce his speed for her.

The doors to Reginald's office were open, another abnormality. He was always either shut up inside the room or the doors were locked in his absence to guard whatever he kept within.

Five broke away from her and started rifling around, looking for some clues, while Vanya wandered to the windows.

"Huh. Magazine clippings about my disappearance." Five said, unsurprised that Vanya wasn't mentioned in any of the entries. Her existence was likely still a secret then.

"It looks like Allison left the Academy to become an actress." He continued when she didn't comment, continuing to flip through the folder. Evidentially Reginald, or more likely Pogo, had compiled a portfolio of all the major news articles regarding the Academy members. Likely designed to track positive and negative press. "More high-publicity missions. And...oh, Vanya..."

"There are people outside." She interrupted, noting a small crowd of black-clad people huddled around a tall statue in the courtyard. She studied them before gasping. "Mom's out there. And so is Pogo. He looks so _old_. This is really weird."

"_Vanya_..."

This time it was Vanya who ignored Five's clear distress, too busy looking at the other members. "I think that's Allison too. Why...why do you think they're all wearing black? Do you think someone died?" She asked nervously, turning to her best friend for further instruction. A part of her wanted to dash outside to find out what was going on, yet the other part of her, the one that had observed everything wrong with the house since their arrival, kept urging her to run to the street and disappear before anyone could realise they were back. Instead, as she always did, she waited for Five to decide the next step for her.

"Ben."

"Ben?" She repeated, looking back out the window. "He might be out there. It's kind of hard to tell, everyone looks so different."

"No, Vanya." Five said, his voice breaking. It drew her attention back to him. "Ben is _dead_."

Her knees trembled but her disbelief kept her upright. "What?"

Holding up an article, in which Ben's official Academy portrait covered most of the page, a stark headline proclaimed his death in apathetic and stark script.

"What?"

Grabbing her elbow, the paper fluttered out of Five's hand as he dropped it in favour of keeping her steady.

"Ben. The folder, it has articles about him, his..." Five groaned, not wanting to say the word again, "it happened twelve years ago. Then there are more about the Academy splitting up."

"No." Vanya maintained.

"Vanya."

"_No_."

He pulled her closer, watching detachedly as her eyes misted over. When he couldn't stand to see her tears anymore, he hugged her tightly.

"We'll go back, we'll fix it." Five promised into her hair, his face burrowed there.

_That_ pulled the first sob from her and then the guilt for thinking such a thing, for even for one second considering putting her own happiness above the life of her brother, made her cry harder. Five held her tighter, muttering to himself while she sobbed, and she clutched at his jacket to keep him in her arms.

A loud crash from the courtyard made the pair jump. Five tried to release her but Vanya latched on tighter, so he had to drag her to the window with him, a hand still fruitlessly rubbing her back in comfort.

"Diego and Luther." He guessed, having to speak loudly over Vanya's weeping to be heard. "They're fighting. They just knocked over a statue in the courtyard. Allison's with Mom. The other guy must be Klaus, judging by the umbrella."

Vanya swiped at her nose and tried to get a hold of herself, hiccupping while Five continued to talk.

"I think we should go outside. Luckily _we_ look the same, so they'll recognise us. We'll find out more from them than we ever will in a newspaper article."

He shook her then, trying to make her focus. "Vanya. Ben's _not_ dead. We'll find out what happened in this timeline, and when we get back, we'll know what to expect and we'll stop it. Okay?"

"Okay." She muttered back.

Offering her his handkerchief, which only she ever seemed to use, Vanya gratefully accepted it to blow her nose and dry her tears.

Following him as they approached the patio doors to the courtyard, Vanya hid behind his back as they entered the courtyard – letting Five take charge while she worked to impose her usual dispassionate expression back on her features. They couldn't see how upset she was, she never could. It would lead to teasing or fighting, usually fighting if Five was nearby as he always leapt to her defence, and that always led to punishment.

It took a few seconds for someone in the courtyard to notice their presence.

"Number Five," Grace said, detecting them as the others continued their arguments.

"Mom, Five isn't..." Diego started to sigh before following her sightline. "What the fuck?"

"Err, does anyone else see tiny Number Five?" Klaus asked nervously.

"Yeah." Allison confirmed.

"Where the fuck did you go?" Diego exclaimed. "Do you have any idea how long you've been gone?"

"Yes." Five replied curtly.

"You, you look exactly the same," Allison said disbelievingly. "Like you did when you disappeared."

"_We_ _are_." Five said, his tone thick with irritation. "We jumped straight here."

"We?" Luther asked sharply, speaking for the first time since Five's unexpected appearance.

Turning slightly, Five took Vanya's hand again to pull her out from behind him.

"Yeah, _we_. If you recall, I didn't go alone."

"Vanya?" Allison said, squinting at her. "Is that you?"

Looking at Five first, she managed a jerky nod in reply, longing to fall back behind Five's body and out of everyone's piercing stare.

"_Miss Vanya_." Pogo sighed in relief, his voice catching. "You're home. You're _both_ home."

"We thought you ran off – we didn't think you two went together," Allison said slowly. "Dad said you were probably dead."

"He said that about Five too." Klaus chimed in. "In fact, when you first took off to Hollywood he used to say _you'd_ turn up dead any day too – weird, it's almost like he had a preoccupation with death."

"Speaking of Dad, where is he?" Five asked, his eyes dropping to the pile of ashes on the floor and the discarded urn a few feet away.

Klaus clapped his hands together. "Oh, you haven't heard the happy news?"

"Shut up, Klaus." Luther snapped. He stepped forward with solemnity dripping from his mouth. "_Listen_, I know this will be _hard_ to hear..."

"Ding dong, the psycho's gone." Klaus finished.

"We get it, Luther." Five interrupted, holding up a hand as One looked ready to lunge for Klaus' throat. "Neither one of us are blind and, in case you've forgotten, we're not exactly stupid either."

He still squeezed Vanya's hand tightly, but she barely noticed. All she could feel was the slow loosening of her chest and the wash of relief that slowly enveloped her body.

Reginald Hargreeves was _dead_. She almost could have smiled, if she wasn't so close to her brother's broken memorial.

"You broke Ben's statue," Vanya mumbled. No one else heard her, looking between themselves in disbelief, but Five did. Five always heard her.

Opening the door for her, he ushered her back inside.

"Hey, where are you two going?" Allison asked sharply.

"To get a snack. I haven't eaten in sixteen years." Five replied dryly. "Come on, Vanya."

He made them peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches. No surprise there.

"Eat one." Five instructed, forcing a plate into her hands. "You need to eat."

Numbly tucking in, she watched him put away several sandwiches in the time it took her to nibble through one. While they ate the others plotted, eventually marching into the kitchen with worryingly determined looks on their faces. Allison and Luther led the way, apparently still the golden children who called all the shots.

"So, Luther, Pogo and Mom still live in the mansion. They'll be your primary caregivers," Allison said, not noticing Five's abrupt scowl, "I need to go back to L.A. and make some arrangements but I'll come back when I can and we can sort out a proper system. I might even bring Claire with me."

"Claire?" Vanya asked.

"My daughter." Allison beamed. "She's four."

"We don't need caregivers." Five said. "We'll jump back to our time as soon as I get the equations right."

"Why would you go back?" Klaus scoffed. "_Dad's_ back there. We're _way_ more fun. Come on, we'll get our inheritance soon. Which one of you wants a pony? You can have two if you want. We have room for some stables, right?"

"If they go back, Dad might not die," Luther said.

"He died of a heart attack, Luther," Allison pointed out, "it will happen no matter what they do."

"Well actually..."

"We're not going back to save _him_." Five interrupted.

"Bentacles?" Klaus said, beaming at him.

"What happened?" Vanya asked before Five could say anything else and get them off the topic. "We read about his – _death_ – in a newspaper article and we saw the statue but. What happened?"

"A mission went bad," Diego said darkly, shooting a look at Number One. "It was avoidable."

"You can give me all the details before we go." Five said, sensing the ripple of discomfort that flittered around the room. "I'll go start on the equations."

Vanya wanted to stay and find out more but she wasn't happy with the thought of being left alone around these relative strangers and trailed after him. No one seemed to mind her leaving, they were more interested in starting a new argument amongst themselves.

They headed towards the children's corridors, Vanya trailing after Five.

All the decorations were the same, yet she couldn't shake the feeling that something about the place was wrong. Perhaps it was the absence of Ben sitting in a corner, his nose in a book. Diego and Klaus chasing after each other and causing a ruckus, which would inevitably result in punishment of some variety. There was no music emerging from Luther's room or from her violin. Everything was too still and too quiet, and she didn't like it. It didn't feel safe, she felt like she was in a stranger's house despite the outward appearance of her childhood home.

"I'm going to check my room," Vanya told Five's back. "I'll meet you in a minute."

Five paused, the small distance between them closed as he rejoined her side and said he'd go with her.

Wandering down the corridor, Vanya walked on autopilot to her room. With a blink, she realised she must have somehow opened the wrong door. Five realised what had happened far quicker.

"What the hell? What the fuck happened to your room?" He hissed, walking in. "Someone knocked down the wall between your room and Klaus'. _Fucking assholes_. I wonder if they even let our beds get cold? Come on, let's go see what they've done to my room. Maybe Luther uses it for all his model planes."

Five's room was perfectly preserved. His wallpaper was the same, his bed neatly made, uniforms hung in the closet. The chest of drawers still had toys and notebooks littered on its top, and his notebooks were stacked on his desk. Mom had kept it clean, there was no dust. It was like it always was.

Looking around it grimly, Five sighed. He pulled out his handkerchief expectantly but Vanya didn't cry at this revelation. She was used to her family wishing she had never existed; it seems with their disappearance, they'd taken the opportunity to make that their reality. Every trace of her life had been wiped from the house: her room was gone, no portraits of her adorned the walls, even her so-called siblings had to stare at her for a minute to remember who she was.

Five got a shrine, Vanya got nothing. It was perfectly predictable.

Crossing the room, she sat at the head of Five's bed and crossed her legs.

Unsurely, Five pocketed the tissue.

"You'll stay in here. We'll find out where your stuff is." He said.

Drawing her knees up to her chin, Vanya folded in on herself and suddenly wished she had thought to bring her pills with her. She would have to ask Grace for some later on.

A sharp bang drew her from the enveloping depression, and she glanced at Five who was kicking and stomping the empty trashcan beside his desk. "Fuck this shit." He cursed as he crushed the metal container beneath his foot. Vanya watched him express his rage passively. When it was flattened, he flopped exhaustedly onto the bed, his legs dangling over the side.

"I was meant to time travel. Prove I could do it. Rub it in Reginald's face. Then I was going to come back and grab you and we were never coming back." Five snarled. "Now everything's fucked up. We're still stuck in this house. Ben's dead, so now we have to go back _and_ stay there to stop it from happening again. And apparently, if it couldn't get _any_ worse, until we do leave, Luther and Allison – otherwise billed as the imbecilic duo – want to be our new Mom and Dad. I don't know what part's worse."

Vanya laughed hysterically, stifling the sound with her palm as it rose in pitch.

Turning onto his knees, Five moved up the bed until he was in front of her.

"Hey. Everything's gone to shit but at least we're together. Can you imagine how well I'd handle it if I was stuck out here _alone_? You're the person keeping me sane."

"I don't feel very sane," Vanya said, her voice still muffled.

"It's a shock is all."

She shook her head. "I don't feel safe here. I know we're home but, so much is different. I don't feel like I can trust any of them. Who knows what they're like after all this time? They've spent sixteen years longer with Father than us. What does that even do to a person? Are they more like him now? I feel crazy saying all of this but, I just don't know what to expect. At least with Father I know what the boundaries are and what I should and shouldn't do. Being here _now_? It's making me..." She gasped for breath as she let her anxieties spill out. If Five didn't regret bringing her along before he must surely regret it now, Vanya thought sardonically.

She met his eyes and saw the panic and confusion she felt reflected in them as he let his guard down for her – before a confident resolve overtook him.

"Okay."

Hopping up, he moved to the dresser and started shoving it across the floor.

"What are you doing?" She asked, dropping the hand from her mouth.

"Barricading us in."

"Why?"

"To make you feel safe." Five replied, giving her a smirk over his shoulder as he finished pushing the drawers in front of the door. "You'll have to give me a hand with the closet though."

"Luther has super strength." Vanya pointed out around another manic chuckle.

"He hasn't beaten me in training since we were seven. I can handle him. And don't forget, we have the advantage. For us, it's only been a few hours. They haven't seen us in sixteen years. They can't remember what we're capable of."

Sliding off the bed, Vanya helped Five with the closet and had to admit she felt a little safer once they were both fortified inside the room.

Five glanced at her as she caught her breath, adding his desk chair to the stack of furniture blocking the door. "Now you'd better not tell me you need to use the toilet after all that."

"No, I'm good." She laughed.

"Great." He sighed, returning to the bed. "I know I said I would work on equations, but now the adrenaline is wearing off, I'm realising how much that jump took it out of me. I could do with a good night's sleep, I think."

Toeing off her shoes, unable to change since she had no clue where her pyjamas would be (most likely ash at the bottom of a bonfire Reginald started when he realised he was free of her at last) Vanya clambered under the sheet that Five held up and got in beside him.

"I don't think I've ever slept in your room before." She observed as Five settled down beside her.

"It's our room now." Five said, looping an arm over her shoulders. "For as long as we're here."

"Thank you, Five."

"Don't know why you're thanking me, I'm the one who got us into this mess." He grumbled. "I should have listened to you when you told me not to jump."

"No," Vanya argued. "I was the one who grabbed onto you. It's probably my fault that you couldn't get out of here.

"I ruin things." She added quietly.

"That's not true." Five told her, sliding down the bed so their faces were level. "You make everything better."

She gave him a small smile even if she didn't believe a word he said. Wrapping her arms around him tightly, Vanya forced her eyes shut and tried to focus on nothing else besides Five's steadily beating heart beneath her ear.

* * *

Apologies for my readers. I uploaded this to AO3 in December but only just now remembered to add it on here. Oops 😬


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